Name

The classical name Tauris or Taurica is from the Greek Ταυρική, after the peninsula's Scytho-Cimmerian inhabitants, the Tauri. Strabo and Ptolemy refer to the Strait of Kerch as the Bosporus Cimmerius, and to Cimmerium as the capital of the Taurida, whence the peninsula, or its easternmost part, was also named Promontorium Cimmerium.[3]

In English, the Crimean Khanate is referred to as Crim Tartary in the early modern period.[4] The Italian[5] form Crimea (and "Crimean peninsula") also becomes current during the 18th century,[6] gradually replacing the classical name of Tauric peninsula in the course of the 19th century. The omission of the definite article in English ("Crimea" rather than "the Crimea") becomes common during the later 20th century.[citation needed]

The name "Crimea" ultimately, via Italian, takes its origin with the name of Qırım (today's Stary Krym) which served as a capital of the Crimean province of the Golden Horde. The name of the capital was extended to the entire peninsula at some point during Ottoman suzerainty.[7] The origin of the name Qırım itself is uncertain. It is mostly explained as:

In the 9th century CE, Byzantium established the Cherson theme to fend against incursions by the Rus' Khaganate, and the Crimean peninsula from this time was contested between Byzantium, Rus' and Khazaria. The area remained the site of overlapping interests and contact between the early medieval Slavic, Turkic and Greek spheres, and became a center of slave trade, Slavs were sold to Byzantium and other places in Anatolia and the Middle-East during this period. In the 1230s, this status quo was swept away by the Mongol invasions, and Crimea was incorporated into the territory of the Golden Horde throughout the 14th century CE.

The Crimean Khanate, a vassal state of the Ottoman Empire, succeeded the Golden Horde and lasted from 1449 to 1779[14] In 1571, the Crimean Tatars attacked and sacked Moscow, burning everything but the Kremlin.[15] Until the late 18th century, Crimean Tatars maintained a massive slave trade with the Ottoman Empire, exporting about 2 million slaves from Russia and Ukraine over the period 1500–1700.[16]

Russian control 1783–1954

From 1853 to 1856, the peninsula was the site of the principal engagements of the Crimean War, a conflict fought between the Russian Empire and an alliance of France, Britain, the Ottoman Empire and Sardinia.[20]

During the Second World War the peninsula was invaded by Nazi Germany in summer 1941 across the Isthmus of Perekop. Following the capture of Sevastopol on 4 July 1942, the Crimea was occupied until German forces were expelled in an offensive by Soviet forces ending in May 1944. After Crimea was liberated, it was downgraded to the Crimean Oblast and the Crimean Tatars were deported for alleged collaboration with the Nazi forces. A total of more than 230,000 people were deported, mostly to Uzbekistan, at the time about a fifth of the total population of the Crimean Peninsula.

Immediately after the flight of former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych from Kiev on 21 February 2014, planning began in the Kremlin to take control of Crimea.[27] Within days, unmarked Russian forces took over the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and Sevastopol, also occupying several localities in Kherson Oblast on the Arabat Spit, which is geographically a part of Crimea. Following a controversial referendum that purported to show majority support for joining Russia, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a treaty of accession with the self-declared independent Republic of Crimea, absorbing it into the Russian Federation, though the annexation was not recognised by Ukraine or most of the international community.[2] The United Nations General Assembly adopted a non-binding resolution calling upon states not to recognise changes to the integrity of Ukraine.[28] Russia withdrew its forces from southern Kherson in December 2014[29] The peninsula is now controlled by Russia, which administers it as two federal subjects: the Republic of Crimea and the federal city of Sevastopol. Ukraine now effectively only controls the northern areas of the Arabat Spit and Syvash Sea.[30]

Geography

Covering an area of 27,000 km2 (10,425 sq mi), Crimea is located on the northern coast of the Black Sea and on the western coast of the Sea of Azov, the only land border is shared with Ukraine's Kherson Oblast from the north.

The natural border between the Crimean Peninsula and the Ukrainian mainland is formed by the Sivash or "Rotten Sea", a large system of shallow lagoons. The peninsula is connected to the Kherson Oblast's Henichesk Raion, and thus the European mainland, via the Isthmus of Perekop, a strip of land about 5–7 kilometres (3.1–4.3 mi) wide, as well as by bridges over the narrow Chongar and Henichesk straits. The northern part of Arabat Spit is administratively part of Henichesk Raion in Kherson Oblast, including its two rural communities of Shchaslyvtseve and Strilkove. The eastern tip of the peninsula is the Kerch Peninsula, separated from Taman Peninsula on the Russian mainland by the Kerch Strait, which connects the Black Sea with the Sea of Azov, at a width of between 3–13 kilometres (1.9–8.1 mi).

The Crimean coastline is broken by several bays and harbors. These harbors lie west of the Isthmus of Perekop by the Bay of Karkinit; on the southwest by the open Bay of Kalamita between the port cities of Eupatoria and Sevastopol.

The main range of these mountains shoots up with extraordinary abruptness from the deep floor of the Black Sea to an altitude of 600–1,545 metres (1,969–5,069 ft), beginning at the southwest point of the peninsula, called Cape Fiolente. It was believed that this cape was supposedly crowned with the temple of Artemis, where Iphigeneia is said to have officiated as priestess.[32]Uchan-suwaterfall on the south slope of the mountains is the highest in Ukraine.

Steppe

Seventy-five percent of the remaining area of Crimea consists of semiarid prairie lands, a southward continuation of the Pontic-Caspian steppe, which slope gently to the northwest from the foot of the Crimean Mountains. Numerous kurgans, or burial mounds, of the ancient Scythians are scattered across the Crimean steppes.

Crimean Riviera

The terrain that lies beyond the sheltering Crimean Mountain range is of an altogether different character. Here, the narrow strip of coast and the slopes of the mountains are smothered with greenery. This "riviera" stretches along the southeast coast from capes Fiolente and Aya, in the south, to Feodosiya, and is studded with summer sea-bathing resorts such as Alupka, Yalta, Gurzuf, Alushta, Sudak, and Feodosiya. During the years of Soviet rule, the resorts and dachas of this coast served as the prime perquisites of the politically loyal.[citation needed]why here? and ref? In addition, vineyards and fruit orchards are located in the region. Fishing, mining, and the production of essential oils are also important. Numerous Crimean Tatar villages, mosques, monasteries, and palaces of the Russian imperial family and nobles are found here, as well as picturesque ancient Greek and medieval castles.

Climate

Crimea's south coast has a subtropical climate

Most of Crimea has a temperate continental climate, except for the south coast where it experiences a humid subtropical climate[citation needed], due to warm influences from the Black Sea and the high ground of the Crimean Mountains. Summers can be hot (28 °C or 82.4 °F July average) and winters are cool (−0.3 °C or 31.5 °F January average) in the interior, on the south coast winters are milder (4 °C or 39.2 °F January average) and temperatures much below freezing are exceptional. On the high ground, freezing weather is common in winter. Precipitation throughout Crimea is low, averaging only 400 mm (15.7 in) a year. The Crimean coast is shielded from the north winds by the mountains, and as a result usually has mild winters. Cool season temperatures average around 7 °C (44.6 °F) and it is rare for the weather to drop below freezing except in the mountains, where there is usually snow.[33] Because of its climate, the southern Crimean coast is a popular beach and sun resort for Ukrainian and Russian tourists.

Within 200 nautical miles of the Crimean shoreline there are an estimated 45 trillion cubic meters of gas reserves.[37] Hydrocarbons in the Black Sea shelf could yield as much as 1.5 billion cubic meters per year.[38]

Economy

Tourism is an important sector of Crimea's economy

The main branches of the modern Crimean economy are tourism and agriculture.[citation needed] Industrial plants are situated for the most part in the northern regions of the republic. Important industrial cities include Dzhankoy, housing a major railway connection, Krasnoperekopsk and Armyansk, among others. Since the Russian annexation of Crimea in early 2014 and subsequent sanctions targeting Crimea, the tourist industry has suffered major losses. The flow of holidaymakers dropped 35 percent in the first half of 2015 over the same period of 2014.[39]

The most important industries in Crimea include food production, chemical fields, mechanical engineering and metal working, and fuel production industries.[40] Sixty percent of the industry market belongs to food production. There are a total of 291 large industrial enterprises and 1002 small business enterprises.[40]

Agriculture in the region includes cereals, vegetable-growing, gardening, and wine-making, particularly in the Yalta and Massandra regions. Livestock production includes cattle breeding, poultry keeping, and sheep breeding.[40] Other products produced on the Crimean Peninsula include salt, porphyry, limestone, and ironstone (found around Kerch) since ancient times.[41]

In 2014, the republic's annual GDP was $4.3 billion (500 times smaller than the size of Russia's economy). The average salary was $290 per month. The budget deficit was $1 billion. Crimea expects until 2017/2018 in Russian investment amount of $5 billion.[42]

Energy

Crimea also possesses several natural gas fields both onshore and offshore, which were starting to be drilled by western oil and gas companies before annexation.[43][44] The inland fields are located in Chornomorske and Dzhankoy, while offshore fields are located in the western coast in the Black Sea and in the northeastern coast in the Azov Sea:[45]

Infrastructure

This section contains an enumeration of examples, but lacks a general overview of its topic. You can help by adding an appropriate introductory section. Editing help is available. (March 2014)

Trolleybus near Alushta

The cableway in Yalta

Public transportation

Almost every settlement in Crimea is connected with another settlement by bus lines. Crimea contains the longest (96 km or 59 mi) trolleybus route in the world, stretching from Simferopol to Yalta.[47] The trolleybus line starts near Simferopol's Railway Station (at Soviet age start near Simferopol International Airport) through the mountains to Alushta and on to Yalta. The length of line is about 90 km. It was founded in 1959.

Railroad lines running through Crimea include Armyansk—Kerch (with a link to Feodosiya), and Melitopol—Sevastopol (with a link to Yevpatoria), connecting Crimea to the Ukrainian mainland.

Tourism

The development of Crimea as a holiday destination began in the second half of the 19th century. The development of the transport networks brought masses of tourists from central parts of the Russian Empire. At the beginning of the 20th century, a major development of palaces, villas, and dachas began—most of which remain. These are some of the main attractions of Crimea as a tourist destination. There are many Crimean legends about famous touristic places, which attract the attention of tourists.

A new phase of tourist development began when the Soviet government realised the potential of the healing quality of the local air, lakes and therapeutic muds. It became a "health" destination for Soviet workers, and hundreds of thousands of Soviet tourists visited Crimea.

Artek is a former Young Pioneer camp on the Black Sea in the town of Hurzuf, near Ayu-Dag, established in 1925. In 1969 it had an area of 3.2 km². The camp consisted of 150 buildings Unlike most of the young pioneer camps, Artek was an all-year camp, due to the warm climate. Artek was considered to be a privilege for Soviet children during its existence, as well as for children from other communist countries. During its heyday, 27,000 children a year vacationed at Artek. Between 1925 and 1969 the camp hosted 300,000 children.[48] After the breaking up of the Young Pioneers in 1991 its prestige declined, though it remained a popular vacation destination.[49]

In the 1990s, Crimea became more of a get-away destination than a "health-improvement" destination. The most visited areas are the south shore of Crimea with cities of Yalta and Alushta, the western shore - Eupatoria and Saki, and the south-eastern shore - Feodosia and Sudak. According to National Geographic, Crimea was among the top 20 travel destinations in 2013.[50]

Crimea possesses significant historical and natural resources and is a region where it is possible to find practically any type of landscape; mountain ranges and plateaus, grasslands, caves. Furthermore, Saki poses unique therapeutic mud and Eupatoria has vast empty beaches with the purest sand.[51]

Sanctions

Following Russia's unrecognized annexation of Crimea, the European Union, the United States, Canada, Australia, Japan, and several other countries (including Ukraine) imposed economic sanctions against Russia, including some specifically targeting Crimea. Many of these sanctions were directed at individuals—both Russian and Crimean.[52][53]

The European Union, the United States, Canada, Australia, and several countries aspiring to European Union membership have imposed economic sanctions directly against Crimea and Crimean individuals. In general they prohibit the sale, supply, transfer, or export of goods and technology in several sectors, including services directly related to tourism and infrastructure. They list seven ports where cruise ships cannot dock.[54][55][56][57][58] Sanctions against individuals include travel bans and asset freezes. Since December 2014, Visa and MasterCard have stopped service in Crimea.[59][60] However, after transactions have been transferred to the new Russian National Payment Card System, Visa and MasterCard resumed operations in Crimea in April 2015.[61]

According to the 2001 census, 77% of Crimean inhabitants named Russian as their native language; 11.4% – Crimean Tatar; and 10.1% – Ukrainian.[65] In 2013, however, the Crimean Tatar language was estimated to be on the brink of extinction, being taught in Crimea only in around 15 schools at that point. Turkey provided the greatest support to Tatars in Ukraine, which had been unable to resolve the problem of education in their mother tongue in Crimea, by bringing the schools to a modern state.[66][67]

Ethnic composition of Crimea's population has changed dramatically since the early 20th century. The 1897 Russian Empire Census for the Taurida Governorate reported: 196,854 (13.06%) Crimean Tatars, 404,463 (27.94%) Russians and 611,121 (42.21%) Ukrainians. But these numbers included Berdyansky, Dneprovsky and Melitopolsky uyezds which were on mainland, not in Crimea. The population number excluding these uyezds is given in the table below.

Crimean Tatars, a predominantly Muslim ethnic minority who in 2001 made up 12.1% of the population,[70] formed in Crimea in the late Middle Ages, after the Crimean Khanate had come into existence. The Crimean Tatars were forcibly expelled to Central Asia by Joseph Stalin's government as a form of collective punishment, on the grounds that they had formed pro-German Tatar Legions. After the fall of the Soviet Union, Crimean Tatars began to return to the region.[71] According to the 2001 Ukrainian population census 58% of the population of Crimea are ethnic Russians and 24% are ethnic Ukrainians.[70]

The number of Crimea Germans was 60,000 in 1939. During WWII, they were forcibly deported on the orders of Stalin, as they were regarded as a potential "fifth column".[72][73][74] This was part of the 800,000 Germans in Russia who were relocated within the Soviet Union during Stalinist times.[75] The 2001 Ukrainian census reports just 2,500 ethnic Germans (0.1% of population) in Crimea.

Culture

Ivan Aivazovsky, the 19th-century marine painter of Armenian origin, who is considered one of the major artists of his era was born in Feodosia and lived there for the most part of his life. Many of his paintings depict the Black Sea. He also created battle paintings during the Crimean War.[77]

Almost 100 broadcasters and around 1,200 publications are registered in Crimea, although no more than a few dozen operate or publish regularly.[78] Of them most use the Russian language only.[78] Crimea's first Tatar-owned, Tatar-language TV launched in 2006.[78]

Crimea was the background for Adam Mickiewicz's seminal work, The Crimean Sonnets. A series of 18 sonnets constitute an artistic telling of a journey through the Crimea, they feature romantic descriptions of the oriental nature and culture of the East which show the despair of an exile longing for the homeland, driven from his home by a violent enemy.

"The name Crimea is to be derived from the Turkish word qirim (hence the Russian krym), which means "fosse" and refers more specifically to the Perekop Isthmus, the old Russian word perekop being an exact translation of the Turkish qirim."

^Edith Hall, Adventures with Iphigenia in Tauris (2013), p. 176: "it was indeed at some point between the 1730s and the 1770s that the dream of recreating ancient 'Taurida' in the southern Crimea was conceived. Catherine's plan was to create a paradisiacal imperial 'garden' there, and her Greek archbishop Eugenios Voulgaris obliged by inventing a new etymology for the old name of Tauris, deriving it from taphros, which (he claimed) was the ancient Greek for a ditch dug by human hands."

^ abNational Identity and Ethnicity in Russia and the New States of Eurasia edited by Roman Szporluk (page 174)

^ abSecession as an International Phenomenon: From America's Civil War to Contemporary Separatist Movements edited by Don Harrison Doyle (page 284)
— 67.5% of the total Crimean electorate voted, and 54.2% said yes.